No Hard Drive for Nintendo’s Next Console

E3 2011 kicks off June 7, 2011, just over a month from now. Of the many, many reveals that are expected to take place during the event, none is more highly anticipated than the public unveiling of Nintendo’s HD console. Project Cafe/Stream/Wii 2 has been confirmed to make a playable appearance at the show, but that hasn’t stopped news about the hardware from seeping through the cracks.

The latest information to hit the web concerns on-board storage for Wii 2. While a recent batch of Wii 2 rumors claimed that “Nintendo solved every storage issue a third party could possibly have with the new console,” the nature of those solutions remained a mystery. Now reports are circulating about the size of the console’s on-board memory, and it is likely not what you were hoping to hear.

Nintendo’s next console is currently rumored to contain 8 GB of on-board flash-based memory. This is obviously a huge step up from the Wii’s 512 MB of on-board flash-based memory, but it does not begin to compete with the current versions of the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. In fact, the original Xbox — released ten years ago — came with a 10 GB hard drive.

The question quickly becomes, how does Nintendo intend the memory to be used? Will it be for caching information from Project Cafe’s 25 GB discs? Will it be to store downloadable content or arcade games? Can it be augmented in any way? Are they taking a note from the PlayStation Plus service and implementing cloud-based saving and content storage? For now, questions are all we have.

Along with news of the system’s internal memory comes word that Nintendo hasn’t yet chosen between 1080i and 1080p for the machine’s maximum resolution. Given what has been rumored about the tech specs for Wii 2, 1080p would seem to be a no-brainer, but after learning that Project Cafe is limited to 8 GB of internal storage, all bets may be off.

News of Nintendo’s HD console has been ravenously received by the hardcore gaming community, many of who continue to feel slighted by Nintendo’s courting of the mainstream with the Wii. All we have heard until now, though it remains firmly in the realm of rumor, points to a machine that answers many of the prayers of the Nintendo faithful. Let’s hope that 8 GB of internal storage is enough for the machine to achieve all that Nintendo hopes it will.

What are your thoughts on Project Cafe’s 8 GB of flash-based memory? Should they have gone with a larger traditional hard drive instead?